Last month we reported on the incredible accomplishment of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, who mapped the Neanderthal genome to the same level of detail that has been achieved with modern-day humans. One of the many amazing discoveries that emerged is that there are only 87 Neanderthal genes responsible for making proteins in cells that are different from those found in modern humans. Somewhere within those genes may be the answer to why Neanderthals became extinct, and what it is that makes us human.